Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Amorphs unleashed, 1 by tropicbreeze

tropicbreeze wrote:
Sharon,my garden depends a lot on shade. Our sun is very intense and I've got a lot of understorey rainforest plants. So I try to balance it out with plantings of tall sun tolerant plants and then fill in underneath with the sensitive ones. But then the trees themselves bring problems, wandering root systems being a major one. I did two articles on my garden.

The thing with most Amorphs is that they go dormant for a period. In that time tree roots (or any other roots) can grow in and dominate the growing space. When the Amorphs wake up and put roots out, there's mature roots out there which have already sucked out most of the nutrients.

Bulblets are really a clone of the mother plant, so already a bit advanced when compared to seed. The time needed for a seed to develop is extended because of that. Much the same as grafting/marcotting will produce a plant which is close to being an adult.

I did plant seed of A. galbra. And later I bought some A. titanum seeds, 10 but received 14. One already mouldy, one seedling succumbed to mould, and 2 are not 100%. And 10 that are, so far, pefect. The galbra were all put in the one large pot, the titanum went into individual small pots. There was good soil in the bottom and then sand on top. The seeds went into the sand and not the soil. I'd heard warnings about having organic matter touching the seed and promoting fungal infections. I give them fish/seaweed and ordinary chemical fertiliser alternately.

The rest of the Amorphs have all been tubers, including the first A. titanum. With the A. bulbifer it's been the original tuber and bulblets.

I'd be inclined to move them into individual pots sooner rather than later. You're likely to do more damage to a larger root system in a large plant than to a smaller root system in a smaller plant.

The red container (mango crate) was fairly large and had 12 bulblets in it. They were in there for the whole season, until they went dormant. Next season they'll go into individual pots with new soil.

This is my mother bulbifer plant after it flowered and then sent up this leaf. It's in a 300mm pot.